Saturday, January 31, 2009

Finally, an update!

Okay, I think I have commented on everyone's blog. I am so behind on everything it's insane! Weekly update:

I got the check from Tricare, deposited it, and sent the doc the check all on the same day. They got it and cashed it, so that's all taken care of. And hopefully we won't have to go through all this with the next surgery!

We brought Oren in for a medication refill and talked to the doctor about a little bit extra meds. He's on Concerta, which is a long release form of ritalin. We have him on the lowest dose which has been holding great for over a year, but he seemed like it just wasn't quite enough in the after lunch period of the day. So the doc, the teacher and myself decided to put him on a very small dose of regular ritalin right before lunch. After being on that for a week, the teacher came down the hall after school yesterday and informed me that the afternoon dose is wonderful! It's just enough to take his focus to his morning level and help him sit still. He is gaining weight and is finally over 40 pounds. At 6 years old. But still, it's something! His doctor says we are doing an awesome job keeping his meds down and his ADHD under control, and that we seem to be more informed than most parents. He appreciated that I had a plan for when he would take the pill so his appetite wouldn't be affected and it would have a chance to kick in before class resumed after recess. It makes me feel good that we have made such a good partnership with the school and the doctors, all working towards helping Oren get the most out of school and family life.

Nathan's therapist is very proud of how well he is doing at his speech. We'll still need the other surgery because he has to work harder than he should to push the air out of his mouth for certain sounds, but a switch sort of flipped the last couple weeks and he has started to get how to get words "from his mouth not his nose". I talked to his preschool teacher about the possible surgery, so they know, and she started telling me how smart he is. They were having crackers for snack one day last week and he was nibbling away at his. He help it up and said, "Look! A stagecoach!" He's 4, and he knows what a stagecoach is. I didn't know he knew that! And he has become much more confident with his classmates, since they can understand his speech better. He likes things to be fair and by the rules, and will defend his friends. He's going to be quite a special young man!

I only hope that all our teachers will be as understanding and appreciative of my kids. We have really been blessed so far with exactly what each of my children has needed.

They stole my husband today.... some jet needs a paint job fixed. As if they don't take him enough? He came home at 2:30 Friday morning! And this morning was after 1:00! Come on!!!!! My kids are driving me crazy today, they won't quit wrestling. My house is in desperate need of my services. And I have no hubby to help..... sniff.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Snow Day

We have church at 11 this year, which is cool because we don't get to laze around all morning, but don't have to get up at 6 just to get everybody ready and there on time. So we like to sleep in a bit....

Mark got a phone call a little before 8 about his Elder's Qorum meeting. Then we tried to pass back out (William gave us a really long night last night....) The phone rings again. It's Amanda asking if we had gotten a phone call about church being cancelled, because so and so called her and told her. "Well, church is cancelled so now you can go back to bed!" So Mark has to get back up and call the president to verify. He had just gotten the call himself and asked Mark to start making phone calls. At this point there was more back and forth phone calls, which woke up children, and it became somewhat pointless to go back to sleep.

I know, 8 is a decent wakeup time, but William was up past midnight, and it was nearly 1 am before he quit crying in his room. And I've had several nights like that in a row, with not enough sleep, so I didn't enjoy the fact that I didn't have the choice to sleep more! And all for about 5 inches of snow! That's it? Roads aren't even bad... I love military people from down south. They're just funny. Freaking out over a little bit of snow....

We did get the check from the insurance on Saturday though! YES! The doctor's office will be sooo happy! Which is good because Nathan's appointment is in 1 week and I was getting a little antsy. If the insurance hadn't had his info wrong we wouldn't have had this problem. But it's all fixed now and everything's good.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Finally!

I have a nice, big, fat check coming to my house to the tune of $800.

And I can't keep a penny!

Because it's the payment for the ENT from Tricare for Nathan's surgery. The one he had in October.....

I know! It's ridiculous that it's taken this long! They sent one in December, but that one had the payee as Nathan William instead of Nathan Willford, so I couldn't deposit it. I had to send it back and ask for a corrected payee. 1 month later I called (about 2 weeks ago?) to check on the status of the new check. Only to find out that the 1st check had been refunded like it was supposed to be but the new one hadn't been resubmitted for processing. ARGH! She sent the request in right away for me, which was nice, and I called the docs office to let them know what was going on with their money. It's kind of a hefty amount and they have been very nice about letting me wait until Tricare pays me before I pay them.

I finally got the email from Tricare that the check has been issued, which means it's in the mail and I should get it in a few days, hopefully. So tomorrow I get to call the docs office again and let them know that their money is almost here! They'll be so excited, seeing as how the surgery was Oct. 30, and he has another appointment with her Feb. 4th to discuss how well he is healing and if we are doing the second surgery option. Which his therapist is pretty sure he needs, and which I felt at the beginning that he would end up with. I saw the extent of the non-movement on the x-ray and I will be very suprised if they both come back saying he doesn't need it.

I just would have felt very bad going to his next appointment without giving them their money from the last surgery, you know? Crossing my fingers it hits my mailbox soon!

Monday, January 19, 2009

Raring to go!

William loves outside and would spend all day, every day, out there if he could! With it being winter, he doesn't get out there as much as he would like but never misses a chance to tell us that he wants to go!

I didn't think anything of his walking around with the boys's shoes, trying to get them on. But when I heard the front door opening I went to check out what he was doing...




One shoe of Oren's, and one of Nathan's. Oren's gloves. Nathan's hat. One silly boy!

Sorry about the fuzziness. He was moving around a lot and the camera was having a hard time focusing with all the light coming in from the back door. He just looked so adorable that I had to dig out my little used camera (these past few weeks...) and snap away!


Thanks to all who wished Oren a speedy recovery. I'd say it worked.... this photo below was masterminded by him! Foamy soap is great, but not when your kids get to it. Ditto with my fridge water cooler thing. We didn't give him his meds yesterday since there would be no point if he just threw it up. But by the time he was feeling better, I was exhausted and laid down for a nap. I woke up to the sound of jumping/splashing, and a funny sort of soapy smell.


The good news is that my kitchen has gotten mopped twice in the last 2 weeks now! And we scooted the fridge out and cleaned behind there, which needed done anyway but now we had nice soapy water to clean with. And the bottom of the fridge got wiped down as well, because there was a water explosion courtesy of William! Thanks boys!

They did most of the cleanup. by the way... including the very nasty behind/under the fridge! Hey, I didn't make the mess!

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Sickie Sunday

Mark got up this morning to go to his morning meetings and heard Oren stirring around. I was trying hard to stay passed out but wasn't meeting with much success, especially since I heard Oren telling Daddy that he felt sick and Daddy replying that it's okay if he throws up.

WAIT! NO! HE NEEDS A BOWL FIRST!!!!!

Too late..... I am blind as a bat without glasses/contacts, so here I am trying to throw contacts in my eyes while Mark is finding his shoes, and Oren is getting sick all over himself and his bed. He's in the tub at the moment, sheets have been changed, and I don't think I am going to church today.

The kicker is that Nathan was sick Wednesday, as was Amanda's little girl. They only threw up once or twice and that was it. But you can never really tell, and I don't want to clean up a mess at church, not to mention he's probably contagious since the other 2 apperantly were.

Oh, the joys of motherhood.

On the plus side, Amanda's husband came home from his deployment yesterday. No more snake cages for me! I had a laugh about that yesterday. She mentioned that she had to help him, he had some of the snakes out and so she cleaned the cages for him. "So he just held a snake while you got to clean up snake stuff..... hmmm!" (That's what I've been doing the last 4 months..... gee. Holding a snake is not cleaning cages, so don't complain to me that you finally had to scrub them out!) Sorry, I just had to vent a tiny bit. This deployment has been hard on me too, and I am very glad he is home. Part of my stress has been trying to keep her from getting stressed, and nobody else has been helping a whole lot. Again. Just like the last one and the one before that one. He's home for a year, and I gladly turn his family back over to him. Now I can enjoy my time with her without feeling frustrated all the time that I am filling in as a partner!

I think I am getting into my new schedule. With all the piano lessons and the extra therapy.... I am keeping pretty busy. I made up a weekly schedule, marked every 30 minutes, with where I am and doing what. I even had to mark in mealtimes and school runs just so everything runs smoothly. This isn't me being crazy, it's me trying to keep some sort of sanity. I like seeing visually where my chunks of free time are, especially when trying to coordinate appointments and things. Plus now Mark knows where I'm at! He couldn't keep things straight before. I have more free chunks than it feels like, which is great. Now, if I could only find the energy to do some housework during those free times, instead of taking a nap!

Friday, January 16, 2009

Merry Christmas for a Happy New Year!

I finally got my Christmas present from Mark. He had made me a little something and accidentally left it at his mom's house at Thanksgiving. It came in the mail a couple days ago, and I was so excited!

A coupon book! He made me a very sweet coupon book. 52 coupons, 1 a week for a year, of things like clean a room, cook a meal, do the dishes, give the boys their bath, date night.... even just go out for ice cream or something! Or I could have him clean out the van, maybe do the laundry. Each coupon has several circles, so I fill in one when I redeem that service. I was going between hugely smiling, to wanting to cry because it was so sweet!

I've been having a hard time this week, meds aren't a complete cure for depression, and I just can't seem to bring myself to tackle all the stuff here that needs done. Now all I have to do is ask to redeem a coupon and voila! The dishes will get done! What a awesome man, and what's funny is that he apologized for doing such a dumb gift. I laughed and said that it's probably one of the best things he's ever given me! What a guy!

Of course the nice thing is that he does stuff without a coupon book to.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Want some odd looks?

How 'bout 3 girls and 3 boys, with 2 mommies. All going out to eat!

After a hair cutting spree, where I did 6 haircuts, I really wanted to treat myself to something nice. Like a mess I didn't have to clean! And a salad bar! So Amanda and I looked at each other and decided to go out to eat at a local restaurant. Hey, her and her girls, and my boys all looked spiffy with their new do's, so why not show them off? I got a little bit gussied up myself and off we went.

The kids squawked the whole way there but were relatively quiet during dinner. I was very proud of how well my little guys did! William actually slept through the seating and ordering, and didn't wake up until I had half my salad built. I was holding him the whole time he slept, which made for some of the looks. Some of the others were because the girls and Amanda were on one side of the table, and my kids and me were on the other side. Boys against girls? Boys rock!

The food was yummy, although William literally took the bowl of green beans off my plate and ate them all. We made it almost all the way through dinner without too much chaos, and no drinks got spilled. At the very end while we waited for our check and to-go boxes the little ones escaped down the aisle and around the tables, and the older ones were just under the tables.

For all of our children together, close to bedtime after a long day, with meds worn off.... it was a pretty good evening! And although I am sure that some of those young couples there thought we were insane, we thought the evening went pretty well and had a nice laugh about it on the way home! :-)

Friday, January 9, 2009

Need energy by IV

That's right, just inject it right there by my sanity shot. Thank you!

This week started with a bang and we were out the starting gates. Between snow shoveling, therapy in town, errands, naps, school runs... I just haven't been able to pull myself together a whole lot on the home cleaning front.

Mom and Grandma and coming down for Grandma's meds and are swinging by for a hello and possibly lunch if their schedule allows. And my house isn't exactly great right now. (Mom, if you're reading this, I know you guys come to see me and not the house but it's a little embarrasing....) Amanda came by yesterday to provide motivation. Bless her!

She martialled the kids during my piano lesson and got Oren's room cleaned. While I made the dinner run for fried chicken, she got Nathan's room tackled a bit- toys put in the right boxes and trash in a central location. I was supposed to finish it last night but didn't get around to it.... Oops. We got the boys's bathroom sanitized since the toilet had flooded again a couple weeks ago. Actually, I had left that door locked the whole time and hadn't touched it. I didn't have to unclog the toilet, the toilet paper and other bodily stuff had decomposed. Just a little plunge and it flushed quite nicely. Everything soaked in the bathtub with hot water and bleach, and got scrubbed. Even the toilet scrubber got soaked! I actually do this often, so it was due to get done anyway.

Today I think my floor will get mopped for the first time in ....... ummm...... a while. I have had a hard time pulling myself together and getting caught up or maintaining housework, so I am glad Amanda is making me do it.

So now that I have had a moment to breath, I think I'll go scrub my table off or something!

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Snowed in!

Hee Hee! We aren't actually snowed in, Nathan's therapist is. She called this morning to say she can't get out of her driveway today. She lives on a dirt road/track thing and is pretty much stuck. That sort of cancels my plans to go down to town today! Drat! :-)

Yesterday saw 5-6 inches of snow throughout the day. I almost got stuck in the Walmart parking lot. My wheels were spinning nicely, but I managed to wrench the wheel enough to knock myself out of the rut. Whew! My van is a bit big for me to push... I really need to put the non-clumping kitty litter in the van, just for in case.

School started back up yesterday too, which was nice. With Mark back on swings, he is home in the mornings. After I took Nathan to the bus, it was just Mommy, Daddy and William. Wow! A quiet house! It's, um, different having Mark home during the day. I have this routine, it works great, it gets everyone where they need to be when they need to be there. When he's home during my routine it's a little more challenging because he doesn't really understand how exacting my timing has to be. If certain things don't happen at certain times, things go haywire. It's not that I'm a control freak, it's that I found a schedule that works and I have to stick to it!

That's going to be the trick. Making him feel needed and included, not just a body in my way, while getting him to understand that he needs to fit into our routine. Because I'm not going to drastically change things to fit the routine around him. We go through this every time he gets switched to swing shift. Don't worry, we do work things differently to some extent, because it's nice to have another adult to take care of things occasionally. ;-)

Sunday, January 4, 2009

A brand new year!

Yay! We survived another year in the Willford household! I have some actual silvery-white hairs, but everyone is still alive and mostly sane.

This week was spent about the same as last week, trying to make it through the winter break. Some housework did get done, and some throwing away of useless or old objects. Some stuff got organized, and I feel pretty good so far!

I also started another piano student this week. My friend Amanda's little girl has been very excited to start, and was really great to wait until I got the other 6 students figured out. Her lessons are free because Amanda watches the boys during my lessons to cut back on the distractions. It works out great for both of us.

Our whole house is getting ready for school to start back up tomorrow. Mark is going back to swing shift, which is 3pm to midnight, starting this week. It's kind of a bummer, because Oren doesn't get out of school until 3, so he won't get to see Daddy during the day. Mark and I talked about that, and decided we'd try having Oren come in and talk to Daddy for a few minutes in the morning, then Mark would go back to sleep if he needs. Hopefully that will help!

Nathan starts therapy 3 times a week next week too, so my already insane schedule will be just a little more so. But our goal is to have him ready for kindergarten this fall, so whatever it takes! He was blessed with a great attitude about all this hard work, and his therapist says he is just a joy to work with. We are very grateful for that.

For some reason, I am in the mood for chocolate mug cake, so I'm going to have me a treat!